Page 87 - Malcolm Gladwell - Talking to Strangers

P: What happened after you used the bathroom?
Doe: I felt scratching on my neck and realized it was pine needles. And I thought that I may have
fallen from a tree, because I didn’t know why I was there.
P: Was there a mirror in the bathroom?
Doe: Yes.
P: Could you see your hair in the mirror?
Doe: Yes.
P: Can you describe what your hair—how your hair appeared?

Doe: Just disheveled and with little things poking out of it.
P: Do you have any idea how your hair ended up that way?
Doe: No idea.
P: What did you do after you finished using the restroom?
Doe: I went back to the bed. And they gave me a blanket, and I wrapped myself. And I went
back to sleep.

2.

Every year, around the world, there are countless encounters just like the one that ended so terribly
on the lawn outside the Kappa Alpha fraternity at Stanford University. Two young people who do
not know each other well meet and have a conversation. It might be brief. Or go on for hours. They
might go home together. Or things may end short of that. But at some point during the evening,
things go badly awry. An estimated one in five American female college students say that they have
been the victim of sexual assault. A good percentage of those cases follow this pattern.
The challenge in these kinds of cases is reconstructing the encounter. Did both parties consent?
Did one party object, and the other party ignore that objection? Or misunderstand it? If the
transparency assumption is a problem for police officers making sense of suspects, or judges trying
to “read” defendants, it is clearly going to be an issue for teenagers and young adults navigating one
of the most complex of human domains.
Take a look at the results of a 2015 Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll of one
thousand college students. The students were asked whether they thought any of the following
behaviors “establishes consent for more sexual activity.”

1. Takes off their own clothes

Yes No Depends No opinion

All 47 49 3 1

Men 50 45 3 2

Women 44 52 3 1

2. Gets a condom

Yes No Depends No opinion